ENGL 301-001

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

  • Books are artistic and commercial

  • What comes to mind when I say “book”?

    • Genres

    • A physical book

    • The first western novel (Robinson Crusoe)

    • Religious texts

  • The Gutenberg Galaxy

    • Inventions

      • Shrouded in Mystery, Legends, Rumors

      • Transformed the wine press into the printing press (1440-1450)

      • Perfected a preexisting invention and made it widely accessible

    • Statistics

      • Medieval scribes could produced (physically write) 50,000 manuscripts a year

        • Between 700 and 1400 C.E., 5 million were produced

      • In the first year of the press, 100,000 books were printed (doubled)

      • In 50 years (1500), 10 million books were produced

    • What made this possible?

      • CULTURE Wealthy, reading public / Shifting from a collective story-telling culture to individual reading

      • ECONOMICS A book is cheaper than paying a scribe / Booksellers can now profit

      • TECHNOLOGICAL Moveable type / Cheaper paper (post-black plague, paper was made of rags)

      • SOCIAL Living in a place where you went decades without war means leisure / Roads to travel on

    • Revolutionary or evolutionary technology?

      • The answer: evolutionary process with revolutionary consequences

    • Consequences

      • Radical shift in democratizing knowledge and information access

      • (De)centralizing state and church power

      • Birth to the renaissance

      • Homogenizing language

      • Local dialects disappear

  • Digital Revolution

    • Marshall McLuhan was thinking about the internet and said we were screwed

    • Things are going to get better faster and it will be painful and fruitful

    • Consequences

      • Communication revolution

      • Commercial revolution (economic boom)

      • Political revolution (like five people controlling everything)

      • Psychological revolution (we’re lonely and addicted)

      • Cultural revolution

Friday, September 4, 2026

  • What are the consequences of digital revolution for publishing industry

    • Democratization versus monopolization (you can say whatever you want)

    • Diminished power of gatekeepers

    • Collapse of economic publishing models

    • New publishing ecosystems (advertisement used to be the main profit avenue)

      • You had to print 1000 copies to first begin publishing

    • Statistics

      • The first E-Book came out in 1998

      • 6M traditional books every year

      • 4M self-published books every year (U.S. only)

  • Do books still matter post-digital revolution

    • Books are sociopolitical forces

    • Books are easily destroyed (Library of Alexandria)

    • Every totalitarian destroys and/or bans books

      • “When they start burning books, it’s not long before they start burning people”

    • Books alter fabric reality

      • Sci-Fi authors came up with credit cards, organ transplants, television (beauty and the beast), the internet, invisibility cloaks


Roaring Point Press

  • Traditional Press versus Small Literary Press

    • Traditional Press

      • Corporate houses that try to do every genre

      • There’s five left in the United States with dozens of subsidaries

        • Disney is ABC News

      • Each one produces 10,000+ books a year

    • Small Literary Press

      • Very genre specific

        • Either fiction, poetry, or non-fiction   

      • Each one process 5-15 books a year

  • Roaring Point Press: Unique Small Literary Press

    • Overview

      • Student-staff teaching press

        • Only six others: Ooligan press, Still House Press, Cornerstone Press, Howling Bird Press, Susquehanna University Press, Library House Press

      • Hands-on and experiential learning-focused

      • Not just for English majors

        • Marketing (advertising)

        • Art (covers)

    • Phases

      • 1 Coursework & Inaugural Catalog

        • Fall 2026, ENGL301 Literary Editing & Publishing

        • Spring 2027, ENGL 494/594 Practicum in Publishing

        • Fall 2027, Inaugural Book Launch: Delmarva Series

          • Delmarva Series, Eastern Shore Legends & Lore

            • Local history and culture

            • Folklives

      • 2 Expanded Catalog 2027-2029

      • 3 Books in translation & international workshops

    • Masthead

      • Executive Director & Editor-in-Chief

      • Managing Editor

      • Associate Editor

        • Fiction

        • Creative Nonfiction

        • Poetry

      • Readers & Copyeditors

        • Fiction

        • CNF

        • Poetry

      • Acquisitions Editor

      • Social Media & Communications Director

      • Media, Marketing, Publicity Director

      • Production Coordinator


Monday, September 21, 2026

  • Publishing terms

    • Trade: general consumers and the broad public

    • Academic: specialist and universities, written by researchers, scholars, experts, etc.

    • Educational: K-12

    • Mass-Market: general public but physically smaller books

  • The big five publishers

    • Who are they…

      • Hachette

      • Simon & Schuster

      • macmillan

      • Harper Collins Publishers

      • Penguin Random House

    • What are their advantages…

      • Networks, i.e. agents (who gatekeep)


Wednesday, ___, 2026

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Friday, ___, 2026

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